Saturday, October 30, 2010

As the weather cools off I tend to make more paper crafts than I do in the warm summer months.

I missed the last TAC Blog swap so I knew I wanted to make sure that I joined the fall one.

I usually decorate my apartment for Halloween and fall but don’t usually make a lot of fall crafts.

I wanted to challenge myself to made a fall themed craft. I decided after seeing a few gratitude and I am thankful for… books that I wanted to make my own.

I started by looking at my papers for fall colors and decided I wanted to try to use the scraps of Genevieve paper and hopefully use lots of the 3 sheets of tags I have. I love the Genevieve papers but have rarely used the tags so I have a lot to work with.

I decided to use a Maya Road Binder Book that I got in a surprise bag as my book. I wanted to use paper to cover the chipboard but I didn’t have much of the Genevieve paper so I decided on a few pages from The Sands of Time paper pack.

I used two papers to cover book and layered on another piece of paper before I attached a stamped tag and flower accent to the cover.

I love the flower button, I can’t believe that I didn’t use it before now.

I added an eyelet and a bit of ribbon to my Gratitude tag.

I wanted to tone down the colors of the pages so out came Walnut Ink and Glimmer Mist. I love the splattered look of the pages. Too bad most of it will be covered up by either photos or tags.

I ran Walnut Ink around the edges of the chipboard and finished off the pages with a little inking around the edges as well.

I love the book so far. Now to decide how to fill it up. I’m thinking either pictures of things I am grateful for or just lots tags with little notes of the things I am grateful for. Maybe I’ll use the album as a gift instead.

Maybe I should leave the book by the table centerpiece and we can jot notes in it as we think of things we are grateful for.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

I don’t usually get a lot of trick or treaters in my neighborhood so for the past few years I’ve went to my mothers house and helped her hand out candy.

She usually gets around 50 kids.

This year I bought this stamp set and wanted to use it for Halloween treats.

I decided to do a cover up for my treats with the Beware stamp. This stamp was the perfect size to stamp on some mailing labels. I wanted to use mailing labels so i didn’t have to cut out such a small piece of paper and the labels made assembly a cinch.
Here is what I started with candy bars, ink, stamp and labels.

I stamped a sheet of labels.

I thought the labels needed a little something so I got out some Walnut Ink and sprayed away.

I thought it needed a bit of shine so out came some Shimmer spray in Sparkle.

I still wasn’t completely sold on the labels so out came some Glimmer Mist in Black Cherry to give it an almost blood splattered look.
That was more like what I wanted.

Next, let the labels dry. I started using a heat gun to dry it faster but it caused the labels to start to curl and I didn’t want to continue in case it effected the adhesive on the back of the labels.

While the labels dried I cut some black text cardstock to fit around the candy bars I had. I cut them to just overlap. For the fun size Crunch it was 2 3/4” x 3”.

I overlapped the cardstock on the front of the candy bar and attached the label to hold the cardstock together.

I put the covered up candy in a small enamelware kettle.

I wasn’t sure I liked that…. I little too obvious. What do you think?

I decided to just scatter them in the basket.

Much better. Maybe, just, maybe they will last until Halloween.
A whole bag of Baby Ruth that I bought are already gone.

If nothing else, maybe the label will keep them from being eaten before we can hand them out.

I think these would be great on just about any candy you hand out, you would just need to size the paper for the candy you have.

I had everything on hand but I the cost would fall under $3 for a small bag of candy.

Maybe you can make your treats a bit spookier this year.
If you are interested in the stamp set I used for your treats next year please let me know and I can order it and send it to you. Stamp set is $19.95 + tax & s/h.
Happy Halloween,
June

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

One of my favorite patterned paper packs from TAC is the More Mimi SWIC.

Here are some Christmas cards that I made with it. They are non-traditional colors of pink, brown and green. I love them.

I used some musical pages from an old hymnal that I sprayed pink and brown, you can see a bit of it peaking out on the top left part of the card. I used three different papers from the More Mimi collections, a tag, chipboard letters, chipboard tree and a snowflake with a brad center.

I distressed all the papers and inked the edges in a light tan color. On this one the tag I was using was a bit small to fit all of ‘Christmas’ on it so I added a chipboard C. I like it as I think it helps to bring out the tag.

I made a few of them, all just a bit different. These were a great use of chipboard letters. I mixed and matched them for the last few cards. I sort of wish I did that on all the cards I made instead of just the last few.

This one I used some wooden letters that I inked in silver along with some chipboard pieces, a snowflake and brad.

I’m not sure if I’ll make all pink cards or make an assortment of cards to send out. I have a couple other ideas running around in my head so stay tuned for more holiday cards.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Every fall I take a trip with one or a couple sisters and my daughter to visit another sister in Wisconsin. It is always a great time.

This past weekend was our annual trip. We had a great time. On Friday we went in search of a shop that had lots of home decorations and garden art. It was great when we finally found it. I think we all thought we were lost but it was well worth the trip.

There was lots of great garden art made from metal parts and pieces. I’ll share a few of my favorites fall decorating items today.

I didn’t buy anything to bring home but I sure had a great time looking around at all the wonderful items that they had for sale.

I would stop there again if I was in the area. They said they are having their holiday open house next week weekend. I wish it was close enough to me that I could stop by again but a 6 hour drive to go there is just a bit too far to drive for just the day…..

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I got an email today from a local paint your own pottery store and in it the owner mentioned that there were only 9 more Saturdays left to make holiday gifts in her store.

Only 9 Saturdays until Christmas???

How can that be? Wow, time does slip by. It seems like only a few days ago school just started. Halloween is just around the corner, Thanksgiving soon after that and then Christmas. Wow, I guess only 9 weeks is right.

It’s a good thing I finally felt a bit creative tonight and I made a few Christmas cards. I bought a great holiday MM kit at Tuesday Morning this summer that has a vintage feel. So far from the kit I made 9 cards.

I embossed snowflakes on red cardstock, inked the snowflakes, added ribbon, flowers and a die cut holiday piece that I added shimmer spray to age it a bit.

I love the vintage feel of these cards.

Forgive the bad pictures, it is late at night and I took pictures of them spread out on my crafting desk.

The kit came with all the die cut images, flowers and buttons. I added rhinestone brads to the flowers and a ribbon to each card, all supplies I had on hand.

I think the kit was $3.99 or something close to that. You gotta love the deals that you can sometimes find at Tuesday Morning. I like to check them out every couple weeks to see what is new. Lately there had not been a lot of new craft supplies but I guess with all the new holiday items they probably won’t get much new in the craft supplies.

Not a bad start to holiday card making a whole 9 Saturday’s before Christmas….

Thursday, October 14, 2010

I saw a taggie blanket a while ago and knew I would have to make one someday.

Well, today was the day. I had decided to make one of my niece and two of them for Tony, the caretaker of my building who’s wife Mary just had twins a couple weeks ago.

They are little cuties and I feel bad for him as his wife had a stroke during birth and they discovered a tumor in her heart so she has to stay in the hospital for a while.

So while Mary is in the hospital, Tony is caring for newborn twins, two other children and still acting as caretaker for a the apartment building. He is one busy guy but luckily it seems like he has lots of help from family and friends.

Tomorrow there is a small gathering and fundraiser at our buildings and I wanted to give them a little gift along with a donation to help with expenses.

Perfect time to make the taggie blanket I saw first when Erin at TOTEally Posh blog about here.

I went to a fabric warehouse and picked out three different patterned fleece pieces. I thought I wanted my blankets about 15”-18”. A 1/2 yard was 18” so it was an easy decision to go with roughly 18” blankets. I purchased 1/2 yard of the three patterns, each was 60” wide so enough to cut three squares from each.

Two of the pieces were on sale for $3.99 a yard and one was on sale for $6.99 a yard. So for $7.50 I got enough material to make four blankets.

I wasn’t too exact when I first cut the squares as you can see below. Put the right sides of the fabric together and trim the pieces to match. A nice thing about fleece is that both sides are soft so you really can’t go wrong here.

I gathered some ribbons and lace.

I wanted my bags to have a little crunch to them so I looked through my plastic bags and found the thickest ones that made the most noise and cut them to the size of the material.

This bag wasn’t big enough to cover the whole square but instead of cutting the bag I left it as it was so the crunch in this blanket does not cover all the way to two sides. On another blanket I used two bags and overlapped them to cover the whole square.

Cut the ribbon to about 6” lengths and insert the folded edge between the two pieces of fleece.

If you pin the ribbon on top of the fleece when you turn it right side out the ribbon is no where to be seen…. trust me on this…. you don’t need to repeat my mistake!

Pin the ribbons in place all around the square.

I wasn’t too exact on the ribbon placement. Some sides have three ribbons, some four, others five and one only had two. I thought there was three but I don’t know where that piece of ribbon went…

Sew along the edge leaving one side open about 5” or just wide enough to get your hand in and out.

Once the sides are hemmed insert your hand to the farthest corner and pull it through the opening. Gently work the rest of the material through the opening to reveal the ribbons around the edge of the right side of the blanket.

Smooth out the edges and pin in a ribbon if you want one where you pulled the blanket through. I made sure I had ribbons on each side of the opening so I didn’t need to add another piece.

Topstitch around the blanket and you are all set. Fairly simple if you don’t need to change spools of thread in the middle of a blanket.

I made four blankets, two with the same material but all with random ribbon placement so none look the same.

I have high hopes that Tony and Mary will appreciate these for little Allison and Lacey, or as Tony is fond of calling them…. job one and job two…..

I bought some little tags that say Handmade with Love that I have to attach yet. They are iron on and I just haven’t got my iron out to attach them yet. I might sew them on as well as ironing them on to be sure that they are secure for the little ones.

Four blankets for under $10, not a bad price for gifts.

I had the ribbons and lace on hand, many of them small pieces that I don’t know when I would have used them. This is a good project to use those small pieces or ribbon.

Looking for a unique handmade gift? Check out my Etsy shop.

About Me

I've been a papercrafter for over 20 years and can't believe how much has changed since I bought my first rubber stamp.
Since joining Fun Stampers Journey or more commonly called FSJ my paper crafting has evolved and expanded tremendously. Fun Stampers Journey has wonderful deep etched, USA made red rubber cling mount stamps, hundreds of matching dies, exclusive color palette including cardstock, patterned papers, Silks, ribbons, Color Splashes and True Fusion Inks. Along with the traditional rubber stamping supplies they also carry planners, pocket scrapbooks and an exclusive 8 1/2" x 11 size GelPress monoprinting plate.
Interested in Fun Stampers Journey? I'd love to help your creative journey as your coach or join my team and spread the word about the fabulous products FSJ has to offer.

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{Disclosure}

The opinions on products expressed here are just that, my opinions. For the most part I'm only going to tell you about products that I buy, use and love. On occasion I've won or received a product for free but either way, I tell it as I see or use it. If anyone wants to send me products to try, feel free.... :-)